![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
omorkaI hate it when the language codes sexist assumptions (which it does all the time).
Today's irritant:
Consider the two sentences "She mothered the child" and "He fathered the child." These should be exactly parallel sentences, right? The only thing that changes is the gender of the subject, right?
But the first sentence describes what the subject is doing. She is behaving towards the child as a caretaker - perhaps cuddling the child, feeding hir, putting hir to bed, or even being overly protective of hir welfare. The sentence also implies that the subject is not actually the child's mother - it would be really odd for the child's birth mother to be described in this way, although it's not an impossible construction; we assume that the child's actual mother will behave this way, and it doesn't need a verb. In fact, the sentence "He mothered the child" is a little strange, but perfectly intelligible - a male (related or not) can feed, comfort, etc. a child well enough.
The second sentence describes the physical relationship between the subject and the child. It means that the subject is the genetic begetter of the child, and that's it. It says nothing about the subject's behavior towards the child. And no one would ever use this sentence about anyone other than the child's begetter (except in error); the sentence "She fathered the child" is so bizarre as to require SF to explain it (the parents are lesbians who had a pair of eggs fused in a lab, and she's the one who didn't carry the pregnancy).
This is (a) blatantly sexist and (b) not very fair to fathers who actually do (to use the gender-neutral term) parent their children, genetic or not.
Today's irritant:
Consider the two sentences "She mothered the child" and "He fathered the child." These should be exactly parallel sentences, right? The only thing that changes is the gender of the subject, right?
But the first sentence describes what the subject is doing. She is behaving towards the child as a caretaker - perhaps cuddling the child, feeding hir, putting hir to bed, or even being overly protective of hir welfare. The sentence also implies that the subject is not actually the child's mother - it would be really odd for the child's birth mother to be described in this way, although it's not an impossible construction; we assume that the child's actual mother will behave this way, and it doesn't need a verb. In fact, the sentence "He mothered the child" is a little strange, but perfectly intelligible - a male (related or not) can feed, comfort, etc. a child well enough.
The second sentence describes the physical relationship between the subject and the child. It means that the subject is the genetic begetter of the child, and that's it. It says nothing about the subject's behavior towards the child. And no one would ever use this sentence about anyone other than the child's begetter (except in error); the sentence "She fathered the child" is so bizarre as to require SF to explain it (the parents are lesbians who had a pair of eggs fused in a lab, and she's the one who didn't carry the pregnancy).
This is (a) blatantly sexist and (b) not very fair to fathers who actually do (to use the gender-neutral term) parent their children, genetic or not.
